Gegard Mousasi (born August 1, 1985) is a professional Armenian Dutch mixed martial artist and kickboxer. He is fighting out of Team Jurojin in Leiden, Netherlands and is a member of Red Devil Sports Club. He is the former Dream Middleweight Champion and former Cage Warriors Middleweight Champion. During 2009 he is scheduled to make a move up to light-heavyweight and possibly heavyweight. Sherdog ranks Mousasi as the #3middleweight in the world while MMAWeekly currently ranks him as #7.

Biography

Gegard Mousasi was born to Armenian parents in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. At the age of 4, Mousasi and his family relocated to Leiden, Netherlands, where he finished grade school before even developing an interest in martial arts.

Early career

He started practicing Judo and later boxing at age 15, twelve months later became the amateur boxing champion of the Netherlands. When he figured out that he wouldn’t make it to the top in a country as small as Holland, he switched to kickboxing, and then eventually to mixed martial arts.

Dream

In the first round of the Dream’s 2008 Middleweight Grand Prix at Dream 2 he defeated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Denis Kang by triangle choke. In the second round of the tournament, at Dream 4, he won a decision victory over Dong Sik Yoon and advances to the final round which took place at Dream 6.There he fought and submitted K-1 veteran Melvin Manhoef in the semi-finals before meeting up with submission specialist Ronaldo Souza in the final. Mousasi defeated Souza by an upkick after being taken down by the Brazilian, thus becoming the first Dream Middleweight Champion and 2008 Middleweight Grand Prix tournament winner.

K-1 Dynamite!! 2008

In a somewhat surprise to the MMA world, Gegard agreed to take on Japanese K-1 fighter Musashi in a K-1 rules fight at Dynamite!! 2008. Being an open weight fight Gegard weighed in at 97.8 kg/216lbs, all but confirming his desire to move up in weight classes. Gegard stated after winning the Dream Middleweight Grand Prix he would no longer fight at middleweight due to the large weight cut. Gegard was not favored to win the match against the more experienced Musashi, but came out fast and scored a first round KO. Gegard went undefeated in 2008 going 6-0 in MMA, and 1-0 in K-1.

Move to light-heavyweight and heavyweight

In interviews from early 2009, Mousasi stated the weight he put on after winning Dream’s middleweight tournament was too much for him to cut back down to middleweight and that his next fights would be at light-heavyweight and eventually heavyweight instead. He is currently scheduled to fight for Dream in May 2009 before making his US debut at Affliction Entertainment’s third event in June or July.On April 30, 2009, it was announced he would fight heavyweight Mark Hunt at Dream 9.